Archive for April, 2012

The Turkish Get Up is a tricky movement … but it’s one of the foundational kettlebell exercises, and it’s essential that you perfect it if you want to get the most out of your kettlebell training. In the experience I’ve had over the last several thousand kettlebell-based personal training sessions, here are three tips that will help you ‘iron out the kinks’, so to speak:

1. Don’t sit up to start the movement – roll instead

‘Punch’ up towards the ceiling while rolling on to the elbow at the same time to get yourself off the floor. This small detail makes getting up so much easier – and it’s how the exercise is supposed to be performed.

2. Learn the first half first

The best way to learn the Get Up is by learning the first half of the movement; if you try to stand all the way up from day one, you’re going to make things a lot harder on yourself. Just come up to where your down arm is locked out and is supporting your weight, and then return to the ground. You can actually get a lot of milage out of the movement by just practicing the first half; here’s how to perform the half Get Up:

3. Do a sideways Windmill to stand up

As you bring the foot through and go to your lunge position, aim to get your knee close to your hand – then do a sideways Windmill to stand up. Don’t sit back on your hand – this is a very common mistake.

These tips might be a little hard to visualize – see if you can pick out what I’m talking about as I go through the movement in this video:

Apply these Turkish Get Up tips to your kettlebell training today and I know you’ll see some fast improvements. And keep training hard!

If you’ve never heard of complexes before, the basic concept is that instead of repeating the same exercise for multiple reps to complete a set, you sequence several different exercises right after one another and repeat the sequence several times to complete a set.

And some benefits of complex training – from steathbody.com:

Lean body mass improvement will be enhanced with this type of training.

You will stimulate your hormones to burn more fat and build lean muscle.

Full body exercises (such as swings, squats, snatches) have been shown in numerous research studies to stimulate growth hormone (GH).

The release of growth hormone will help to burn body fat and build lean muscle mass.

Resistance training, higher reps, full body exercise, and minimal rest between exercises are all proven methods to stimulate GH, which are all accomplished with complex training.

In short, if you’re looking to gain lean muscle, burn fat, and get into phenomenal physical condition, kettlebell complexes are for you. I just shot and posted up a video showing you one of my favorite KBC’s – check it out, and then read the written workout recap below it:

Video Recap

Do one top-down Turkish get up

Immediately follow this with five snatches

Finish your five snatches and go right to five clean, squat and overhead presses

Complete the complex with ten one hand swings

Repeat the complex for five to ten rounds total on each side

Also – this post was in part inspired by a six week workout program I just finished up for my personal routine … and though it was brutally hard, I loved it And I got some great results! If you’re looking for a complete program built around kettlebell complexes, I highly recommend it – check it out by clicking here